


A Cruelty of Harpies

by Trobadora



Category: Original Work
Genre: Female Protagonists, Gen, Identity Issues, Science Fiction, modern-day urban SF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-10
Updated: 2011-07-10
Packaged: 2017-10-21 05:19:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/pseuds/Trobadora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hunting harpies is a dangerous profession. Not the least of the dangers: unpleasant truths about your best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cruelty of Harpies

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://snowynight.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**snowynight**](http://snowynight.dreamwidth.org/) in the [](http://junetide.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**junetide**](http://junetide.dreamwidth.org/) exchange. The original request was: _Modern or near future. There's a group of secret government agents who investigate and hunt monsters to keep the society safe, but what's the price they're willing to pay?_

  
**#1. _the incarnation of fear itself_**   


  


> "She travels the thunder," as the poet says - until very recent history, thunderstorms were the source of the high voltage they used to transition between their own realm and ours. It may not be overstating the case to claim this played a part in the formation of the common human fear of thunderstorms. The incarnation of fear itself emerging from the heart of the storm - they were a force of nature all unto themselves.
> 
> Today, of course, high voltage is an everyday commodity, and they emerge from among energy transmission lines and substations instead of thunderbolts and lightning.
> 
> _From: David Theldon, "Harpies in History: An Investigation." Margaret House, Institute of Biotechnological Research, 1992._

"All right," Patrice Parry said, leaning back against the guard rail. "Down you go."

She looked, Ally thought, very much at home here, the close-cropped hair that normally said elegance now contributing to her warrior look. Combat boots, a protective vest and the tranquiliser gun nestled in the crook of her elbow suited her every bit as well as the swimming costume Ally had first seen her in, nearly two years ago.

Dark clothes, dark skin, dark hair - night almost made Patrice a shadow on the dimly-lit bridge. Rashid and Ally beside her melted into the darkness nearly as well, their similar clothes chosen for just that purpose.

"Well?" Impatiently. Ally had hesitated too long for Patrice's taste.

Ally leaned over the guard rail and glanced down into the darkness under the bridge. There was just a hint of water glittering in the faint remnants of the streetlights. She shuddered, and her hand clenched on the rim of the helmet she was holding. The path by the canal wouldn't have been a comfortable night-time choice even before she'd discovered what lurked in the darkness. But _playing bait ..._

"Do I really need ..."

She bit off the sentence, realising its pointlessness, at the same moment Rashid interrupted: "Yes." He eyed her thoughtfully. "Yes, you do."

Patrice gave Ally a small push. "Everyone has to, at least once," she reminded Ally. The slightly ironic tinge to Patrice's voice might have been grating, but Ally was used to it. That was her friend, all right: elegant, cool and always slightly amused by the world around her. "You don't really _know_ until you do."

And perhaps Ally did need to hear it again, needed to be assured this would serve a purpose. The theory had sounded quite bad enough, after all.

"We're keeping you in sight at all times," Rashid assured her, grinning widely. Patrice's lips were also curling up in an amused smile.

 _Laugh at the newbie, that's right,_ Ally thought peevishly. But she put on her helmet, straightened her shoulders and went down the metal stairs leading to the footpath.

Patrice and Rashid followed her half-way down, then watched as she stood at the bottom, looking up at them. She turned towards the dark canal, then the footpath shaded by trees. It was a clear night; it might have been even darker.

Above, Patrice made shooing gestures at her. Ally nodded and turned down the path.

She didn't look back again; she didn't need to. Patrice was watching out for her.

Walking determinedly along the canal, Ally wiggled her helmet a little until it stopped pressing her earpiece against her skull quite so uncomfortably. She was growing more tense by the moment.

Patrice had her back, of course. The thought was still strange: One day she'd believed her friend to work for an overnight delivery company; the next she'd found out she secretly hunted monsters.

Ally took a deep breath of cool night air, then coughed as a particularly nasty waft of rotten-smelling air from the canal hit her nostrils.

If she hadn't turned around that night, she'd be home safe and sound now, not strolling down an unlit footpath waiting to be attacked. If she hadn't run after Patrice, if she hadn't caught her in that alley, wrestling with a large, strange-looking bird-thing ...

She'd be home. She wouldn't even _know_. Not about what lurked in the darkness; not about what her friend truly did, who she really was. Something in Ally twitched at the thought. Two years, and she hadn't had a clue.

Perhaps if she wasn't a doctor she still wouldn't know, despite what she'd seen. They might not have considered recruiting her. But instead, the very day after, Patrice's superiors had invited her for an interview.

She'd gone. Curiosity had always been her weakness.

_Curiosity kills the bait._

Something was prickling at the back of her neck. Every rustling leaf seemed birds' wings to her imagination.

Patrice and Rashid weren't far behind her, she reminded herself. She kept walking.

Without warning, her heart jumped into her throat. Her muscles seized, blood rushed in her ears, and she couldn't breathe. A wave of terror swept over her, drowning out every thought. She opened her mouth, but no sound would come.

Was there movement behind? The blood rushing in her ears was louder than anything else.

Blackness welled up, surrounded her, swept her away. Everything was tightly-clenched fear, and it kept winding tighter. It didn't stop. It would never stop.

She was lost.

It lasted an eternity, or a moment. Then it stopped, as abruptly as it had come: not like real fear at all. Ally found herself sitting on the footpath, shaking like a leaf. Her muscles trembled, her very skin hurt, and she was hyperventilating. Someone had an arm around her.

Patrice.

Patrice was there; she'd been there all along. Ally took a shuddering breath.

"It's gone," her friend said calmly, taking off her own helmet, then gently pulling off Ally's. She threw one of them to Rashid, who caught it smoothly. "Come on, get up. That was quite the adrenaline shock. You need to walk it off."

Patrice helped Ally to her feet. It took a few stumbling steps before Ally found something akin to balance again. Her skin was still all gooseflesh, and her heart was only just beginning to slow down.

"What the hell was that?" she asked, her voice trembling.

But she knew the answer. Rashid merely confirmed it: "That," he said, "was a harpy."

~*~

"We're there," Rashid said as they climbed out of the van again. A circuitous route through one-way lanes and roundabouts had brought them back to the same canal, only a few bridges down. "We're right on the other side of where the dog was found."

That was what had brought Patrice's team here, to the canal: a dead St. Bernard had been found there, somewhere between the two bridges. It had slipped its owner's leash, and encountered a harpy. The tell-tale marks of its beak piercing the dog's skull, of the harpy feeding on its brain had caught the Institute's attention.

Now they were about to approach the same place again from the other side. Harpies, Ally had been told, were creatures of habit. Small groups of them tended to use the same spot again and again to pass between their own realm and the human world. Finding a second one here was very likely; there generally seemed to be about five harpies around a given transition spot.

The drive from bridge to bridge had given Ally the time to regain her composure somewhat, but the memory of overwhelming terror still sent her shivering every now and then. She'd been told harpies provoked such a terror reflex in nearly all mammals - it was how they immobilised their prey before they attacked. She'd thought she'd understood.

She hadn't.

When they reached the edge of the bridge, Rashid turned to Ally and grinned. "Ready for the second half of _Harpy Hunting 101_?"

She snorted, humourlessly. "I doubt anyone's ever actually _ready_ for this." Everyone recruited by the Institute had to go on a hunt once without the drug that suppressed the terror reflex, and having experienced what she had, she was beginning to see why.

Patrice clapped a hand on Ally's shoulder, then nodded at Rashid. "Since Benjy's not here - your turn to be bait."

Ally shuddered at the thought, but Rashid, incongruously, grinned. "Good thing he's down in Bromley. I love this part."

Patrice snorted. "It'll be your turn soon enough."

 _In Bromley_ meant the medical facility the Institute maintained there - Ally herself might end up working there once her training was complete. She wasn't sure she wanted to. _In Bromley_ , after all, meant _in for detox_. The drug that suppressed the terror reflex in hunters like Patrice and Rashid was far from harmless; after a while, the suppressant's psychological side effects became too pronounced, and only full detox would help. Or so Ally had been told.

Ally shuddered again, remembering the sheer terror that had flooded her. Could a drug, any drug, really suppress something this forceful?

Rashid leaned against the street lantern marking the beginning of the bridge and grinned. "Your turn first. Looking forward to next week yet?"

Patrice scowled at him.

Something in Ally's stomach clenched. "You're going into Bromley next week?" Her mind whirled. She'd known - Patrice was a hunter; of course Ally had known she must be taking the suppressant, too. And yet it hadn't fully registered.

Patrice shrugged and offered her usual ironic smile. "That's the schedule," was all she said.

 _Detox. The drug's mind-altering side effects ..._ Truths beneath truths. Ally suppressed a shiver.

Next to her, Patrice turned and waved an impatient hand in the direction of the stairs. "Go on, Rashid."

With a practiced movement Rashid put on the helmet he'd been dangling from his hand and slapped a hand on the guard rail. His grin was genuine and wide. "No, really, I love this part."

Patrice rolled her eyes. "Stop gloating, get on with it."

Rashid mimed an extravagant bow, turned and strolled down the stairs as if he didn't have a care in the world.

"No 'Rash Rashid' business this time, if you please," Patrice called after him. She sounded amused.

He waved up at her. "But of course, Double-P." He rapped his knuckles against the metal of his helmet and continued down the stairs, his heavy boots clacking in smooth rhythm against the grated metal.

Patrice rolled her eyes and threw Ally a glance that probably meant, _see what I have to put up with?_

Ally knew that glance. Normally she'd have answered it with a smirk of her own. She'd always loved Patrice's ironic amusement, the way she always seemed to be inviting Ally to share it. _The two of them, mocking the world ..._ How little had she really known of Patrice, all this time? What was the truth beneath that surface?

Perhaps the joke had always been on her.

Patrice, thankfully, was completely focused on the hunt. She handed Ally a pair of night-vision binoculars, hoisted her tranq gun and grinned. "Come on." At the top of the stairs, she turned around again. "Stay close to me. We won't be getting into range - it'd notice us if we did. So you'll be fine. Harpies don't do crowds - they're solitary hunters, and they only go for solitary prey."

Ally nodded, but said nothing. She didn't quite trust her voice. She'd simply stick close to Patrice, who had to know what she was doing.

For several minutes they followed Rashid at a leisurely pace, keeping as much distance between them as would allow them to keep him in sight. The stretch of canal ahead of them was fairly straight, which made things easier. They did need to keep their distance, after all; as Patrice had said, a harpy wouldn't attack a group.

Ally kept a close look on Rashid and the air above him. Her night-vision binoculars presented a greenish, but clear image.

Beside her, and in her earpiece, was the low murmur of Patrice and Rashid chatting away, unconcerned banter as if they were just out for a stroll.

Ally kept silent. Too many questions. Who was Patrice, really? Everything Ally had thought she'd known: was it a lie, an artifice, or simply a part of her? Even her sense of humour - how much of that was due to the detachment created by the drug?

Did Patrice herself even still know?

Ally shook off the thought and kept her eyes on Rashid.

Suddenly there was movement above the man. Ally gasped and stood still as she watched what must have happened to her, earlier. Something bird-shaped was diving down at Rashid. Beside her, there was the distinct _thwump_ sound of the tranq gun being fired, and the bird-thing that had been diving at Rashid dropped down next to him. It flailed on the ground, not completely knocked out, and its wings - large and strong like a swan's - beat in a futile attempt to gain air again.

The creature did look rather like a giant, angry swan, at least at first glance. Its wing span was similar, and so was the movement of the wings, but the harpy was leaner, its head naked on a much shorter neck, and it had a long, vicious-looking beak. It looked _hungry_ , even from this distance, even through the distorted view of the night-vision gear.

Ally had thought that had been her imagination, in that alley where she'd first seen Patrice wrestling with a harpy.

Still, it seemed merely a bird, if a strange one. There was nothing to show what power it held.

And Rashid's reaction showed nothing either; he crouched down next to the creature, completely unaffected. There was no trace of the mindless terror that had struck Ally helpless. Nor with Patrice, who had taken off in a sprint, hurrying towards Rashid.

Once she'd experienced the rush of terror herself, Ally had thought she must have been imagining that, back in the alley - that surely, Patrice must have felt _something_. But no. Neither of them seemed to.

No wonder a suppressant that powerful had side effects. How could a person remain the same, having something that fundamental taken away? It might be a horrible thing, but it was part of being human.

Rashid was grappling with the half-stunned harpy, trying to hold it in place when Patrice caught up with him. Together they managed to pin it to the ground - a practiced move, mere routine. They held it still, and with a free hand, Patrice pressed something against its neck.

"You have to get the tracker right into the back of its neck," Patrice explained. Her voice was perfectly calm in Ally's earpiece. "Otherwise it'll tear out the foreign object with its beak."

Ally stared, and for the longest time didn't even notice she was on her own. Patrice and Rashid were about fifteen yards ahead, and she couldn't come closer.

Surely she was close enough. Surely she was safe here. Patrice had left her standing there. Patrice must know what she was doing.

But Ally's heart was hammering in her throat again.

Patrice had never been reckless. Distant at times, yes; unduly amused by the strangest things at times, yes. But she'd never been a thrill-seeker.

Then again, when you hunted harpies for a living, a pub brawl must seem terribly sedate in comparison. What could possibly thrill someone like that in an ordinary night out?

She knew nothing about Patrice's real life. She was only just finding out - and the more she found out, the less she knew. The less she knew her friend.

Ally's free hand clenched involuntarily, and her fingernails bit into her palm.

Ahead, Patrice turned towards Rashid and grinned. "On three. One - two - three."

On three, they both moved back, and the creature - now having recovered from the brief stun - let out an eerie screech, looked about itself and took to the air again.

Patrice and Rashid didn't even look after it. Patrice slapped Rashid on the shoulder, and they walked back to where Ally was still standing.

"Back to the van, people," Patrice said. "Let's see what we've got."

~*~

**#2. _this we know to be myth_**

  


> The German monster called the _Nachtgiger_ , coming to take those who stay out too late; the New Zealand _Hakawai_ , even the vicious Harpies of Greek myth themselves - how many of the bird-creatures of myth and legend were inspired by encounters with the thunder-birds? There is no telling, but it is suggestive that each of these are local names for the creatures we, in English, now call harpies.
> 
> The little-known Lymonsdale Bestiary has one of the earliest extant descriptions. It calls them thunder-birds and claims they are sent by the same wrathful God as the storm itself, birthed fully-formed among the thunder. This we know to be myth, of course. But do harpies lay eggs, as birds do? Do they brood? Do they feed their young? We may never know. They only procreate in their own realm.
> 
> _From: David Theldon, "Harpies in History: An Investigation." Margaret House, Institute of Biotechnological Research, 1992._

Rashid slid the side of the van open, and they climbed into the back, crowding around the computer behind the second row of seats. Rashid quickly typed a few commands and pulled a window into the foreground. A map lit up, then went black, then returned. A digital clock ran in fast-forward at the bottom of the screen, and Ally watched a red line spiral out from the canal: the first harpy they had tagged.

It circled for a while, probably disoriented, then set out toward the northwest in an arced line. A second red line began to grow then, also circling.

The first line came to a stop not far from the other side of the canal. The counter slowed to regular speed then; they'd caught up with the present. The signal was still active.

"That's one of the transformer stations in the local grid," Rashid said.

"It hasn't transitioned, though," Patrice stated unnecessarily. "Might not be it after all."

It might not be the harpy's transition point, she meant. Even with the abundance of potential transition spots the modern electricity network provided, harpies preferred regular places to transition between realms. Locating popular transition spots was the best way the Institute had found to hunt harpies.

If the harpy hadn't sought out its transition spot after all, it might have found new prey. Ally shuddered. Patrice and Rashid didn't seem too bothered by the implication, but of course they'd done this dozens of times before.

Still, Ally felt herself pull back a little from both of them, and was glad when neither of them noticed. Their almost preternatural calm was beginning to make her twitch.

She'd always admired Patrice's calm, but then, that was before she'd known. - No, Ally reminded herself: she still didn't know. Perhaps Patrice _had_ been this calm, before. Perhaps she was jumping to conclusions.

Perhaps.

"The other's still moving." Rashid pointed at the screen, where the second red line was now progressing in southwestern direction. It looked like it would eventually meet the first. Their transition spot, after all, it seemed to Ally. "We'll wait for a bit to make sure, but looks like we're going for roughly that area." His finger circled the spot on the other side of the canal where the first harpy was.

Patrice nodded, thoughtfully. She put a hand on Ally's shoulder. "Your part's done. But you can come along for this; we'll have this done in no time. Just stay in the van, and you'll be safe."

"As houses," Rashid added unnecessarily.

"You probably won't be able to see much, but then again, you might." Patrice winked at her. "Hope for an entertaining show."

Patrice's amusement again. It didn't seem nearly so funny now. Her sense of humour: was it nothing but a sign of a severely limited emotional spectrum, a chemically-engineered emotional shutdown?

If so, perhaps it made sense she'd become reckless, seek out stronger and stronger thrills.

Ally shuddered.

"We're taking them out." Rashid's grin was entirely delighted, and entirely disconcerting.

~*~

Both harpies seemed to have settled on the site next to the transformer station. Rashid parked the van on the warehouse's parking lot.

"How many of them do you think there will be?" Ally asked.

Patrice shrugged. "There's never more than six or so." She got out of her seat.

Ally watched as Patrice and Rashid picked up their guns - not tranquilisers this time - and set out across the unlit parking lot. Their steps almost seemed to bounce.

Ally looked after them, suppressing a growing sense of unease. They seemed entirely too confident, too unconcerned. _Reckless_ , her mind whispered.

She sat down at the computer and looked at the display. The two tagged harpies were still showing. One of them seemed to be circling in the air; the other was sitting still at the edge of the property.

Unaccountably nervous, Ally stood up again and went towards the one-way window in the side of the van. It was too dark outside. She switched off the lights to let her eyes adapt, and looked out at the moonlit scenery. Patrice and Rashid were no longer in sight; they must have turned the corner. The only movement came from clouds sailing across the dark sky.

No. There was also movement around what looked like an old smokestack at the back. Ally couldn't make out any details. She picked up her night-vision binoculars, but the window glass interfered.

Feeling slightly self-conscious, Ally folded down the back of the second-row seats, then clambered over into the front of the van. She cranked down the window on the driver's door just a fraction and aimed her binoculars. The swarm circling the old smokestack sprang into bright, green focus. Ally's free hand clenched on the crank handle. She swallowed, then began to count.

For a moment she remained transfixed by the sight; then she pushed the comm button. "Patrice, Rashid," she called hastily, "there's an entire swarm of these things up in the air. Twelve, fifteen of them. Some of them ..." She hesitated. "They look like fledglings."

"That's ridiculous," Rashid said after a moment. "Harpies don't breed in our world."

"I said _they look like_ ," Ally snapped. "And I know what I'm seeing."

Silence. Rashid didn't reply, and Patrice hadn't said anything at all.

What if they refused to come back? How clearly were they even thinking? Could Ally trust either of them?

"Get back here! There are too many."

"Hang on," Patrice finally said. She sounded uncomfortable. "We'll be right back. We'll check."

~*~

It took entirely too long for Ally's nerves, but it couldn't have been more than a minute or two until she spied Patrice and Rashid rushing towards the van. Rashid was limping, and Patrice was half-pulling him. Occasionally, one of them aimed a gun into the air and fired. Ally could see them react to the recoil even though she couldn't hear the silenced shots.

Then she saw the shadowed shapes in the air above them. Occasionally one of them swooped down at the running humans. So far, they hadn't taken to attacking as a swarm.

Thank God.

Patrice fired again, and this time Ally could see a harpy being hit. It dissolved even as it fell; all that hit the ground was a viscous glop.

Patrice and Rashid were coming closer. Soon they'd be here ... and so would the harpies. Ally shuddered. No choice. She slid the door open as soon as Patrice and Rashid were in range.

Just then, a shadow came tearing out of the night. For a moment Ally could see it clearly, its wings folded upwards for the dive, its claws outstretched.

Then blackness and terror swallowed her again.

An indeterminable amount of time later, Ally found herself propped against the inside of the sliding door, Patrice hovering over her. Rashid was sitting on the computer chair, feeling his ankle.

They must have closed the door.

Ally rubbed her forehead and took a shaky breath. "What's the collective noun for ...?" She gestured shakily at the door. "A terror?"

Patrice smiled, humourlessly. "A cruelty, actually."

"According to the Book of St. Albans," Rashid added. "From the year 1486, in case you care."

Patrice rolled her eyes at him, amused. She seemed perfectly calm.

Perfectly mad.

 _I don't know you at all._ "Rash Patrice," Ally muttered.

Patrice's head snapped around. "What?"

Ally felt her face flush. She hadn't meant to say that out loud. "Rash Patrice," she repeated, forcing a wry smile into her voice. "You called him _Rash Rashid_ earlier. How about _Rash Patrice_? If you'd checked, you could have seen that swarm before you went out."

Her words hung there in the air between them, between Patrice's narrowed eyes and Ally's own pained expression.

 _And back down at the canal, when you left me on my own,_ Ally could have added, _was I really safe there?_ She didn't ask; she wasn't entirely certain she wanted to know.

Eventually Patrice snorted and shook her head - not in denial, but in wry acknowledgment. "I should have checked," she admitted. A half-smile. "Not quite how your first hunt should have gone. I'm sorry."

~*~

**#3. _a remarkably life-like representation_**

  


> Strabo's report offers tantalising hints at documents lost with the burning of the Library of Alexandria. How much of this had any basis in fact, we cannot know. However, as Picasso said, art is a lie that brings us nearer to the truth.
> 
> Likewise, the mounted harpy in Bathurst's cabinet of curiosities was of course a fake, as harpies dissolve upon death. However, contemporary reports suggest it was a remarkably life-like representation.
> 
> _From: David Theldon, "Harpies in History: An Investigation." Margaret House, Institute of Biotechnological Research, 1992._

Ally listened as Patrice called in their discovery. They were ordered back to Epping; several teams would be sent to the warehouse, but Patrice was to take the unmedicated newbie off what would soon be a battlefield.

They were all glad of it.

None of them spoke much on the drive back to Epping. Ally's mind was in a whirl. Two encounters with harpies had been bad enough; Patrice had shaken her more than that. Patrice's detachment; Patrice's recklessness - one of them familiar, the other new, but both equally disconcerting now.

How much of any of this was even real?

When Patrice went into Bromley, when her system was purged of the suppressant, how much would change - how much would _she_ change?

 _The real Patrice._ After years under the influence of that drug, did she even exist any more?

Ally was relieved when they pulled into the parking lot in Epping. There was only one other van here, the same white with the same delivery company logo on its side. The others were all out.

A tense debriefing with Director Weyman followed. All three of them were asked to describe the night's events, and to confirm each other's observations, several times over.

"What do you know?" Patrice eventually threw into a lull in the interrogation. Her eyes were sharp. "There's something you're not telling us."

Away from of the tense immediacy of hunting, she seemed much more the woman Ally knew. Ally's unease only grew. Patrice had always been like this. Always, since the start. Ally had simply never had the chance to notice.

Weyman gave a thin smile and nodded. "They don't normally congregate in such numbers," he said and pressed his lips together into an even thinner line. "But _normal_ is being redefined, I believe."

Patrice raised her eyebrows. "I've only once seen more than seven of them in one place. And that was called a fluke."

"It's happening more and more often."

"And the breeding?" That was Rashid's question.

Weyman nodded sharply. "That, too. If it can be confirmed tonight, that will be the first documented incidence in the UK. But not, alas, worldwide." He shook his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose; the first Ally had seen of him less than fully composed. "We have two confirmed reports on harpy fledglings from America and one from Egypt. All from the last two months."

For a moment, nobody said anything.

"They're spreading," Ally said flatly, trying to imagine what that would mean. "They're taking root here."

It would mean more hunters, more people taking the suppressant.

And, "They're spreading," Weyman confirmed.

~*~

The next afternoon, Ally couldn't seem to sit still. It was Friday, the day she usually went out with Patrice. Today, the very thought made her twitch. She simply no longer knew how to take Patrice.

Ally's flatmate was away for the weekend, so she was alone. It left her the entire flat for her nervous pacing. The movement seemed to help somehow. Across the living room into the kitchen, out onto the balcony. Back through the kitchen, down the stairs, along the corridor to the bathroom. A quick look in the mirror; her blond hair was hanging down limply, and there were shadows under her eyes. "You've looked better," she told her reflection.

Eventually the silliness of it became impossible to ignore. Back in the living room, she threw herself down on the sofa and reached for the phone.

Speed dial #1 was Patrice. Ally only reached the answerphone and released an involuntary sigh of relief. After the beep, she quickly begged off their usual Friday night outing, claiming she wasn't feeling well.

She really wasn't.

It was hardly the first time one of them had cancelled their night out. With any luck, her friend wouldn't think anything by it. If she was her friend; if what they had could be called a friendship. If it would even survive Patrice's stay in Bromley.

If there was a 'real' Patrice still underneath it all, Ally had never known her. All that Ally had known was artifice, a biochemical creation.

Patrice's true self - would Ally even _like_ her?

Ally set the receiver down again and slumped against the cushions. She rubbed a tired hand across her face. It was only a temporary reprieve.

The truth was, there was simply too much she didn't, couldn't know. Was fear exaggerating the drug's effects in her own mind? How could she know the difference? How would even someone who'd taken the suppressant know? Under the influence, unafraid, how could you know if you truly had no _cause_ for fear?

Perhaps some time working at the Bromley facility might give her the insight she needed. Or perhaps ...

"Make up your bloody mind," she muttered to herself.

On Monday morning, she tracked down Rashid's phone number and asked a quick question.

~*~

Ally walked into the Epping facility's locker room, a wide, windowless hall resembling a gym. Lockers lined the walls, and tables and chairs were spread across the room.

Several teams were gearing up for their nightly hunting expeditions, gathering around a table or chatting in front of the lockers. By the far window, Patrice was sitting at one of the tables, a duffle bag next to her. She was talking to Rashid and another man -that must be their third team member, the "Benjy" they'd mentioned, though someone looking less like a "Benjy" Ally would have been hard pressed to imagine. He was a tall, muscular man with short, nondescript brown hair, red cheeks and a boxer's nose. Patrice turned half-way, and her eyes fell on Ally. Her eyebrows went up.

Ally waved and joined them at the table. "Hey."

"Hey." Patrice smiled at her and turned around to her companions. "Benjy, this is Ally Westbrooke," she introduced. "Friend of mine. The newbie who went out with us last week."

The man stood and held out his hand. "Benjamin Stuart."

"Benjy," Rashid and Patrice corrected almost simultaneously. Everyone snorted.

Patrice's smile was genuine when she turned to Ally again. "I didn't think I'd see you before ..." She gestured in the direction of the door.

"Yeah." Ally hesitated. "Sorry about Friday. We should have gone, I wasn't that badly off."

Bad conscience. And since when had avoidance ever solved anything?

"Next time. In a fortnight," Patrice promised. "I'll still be in Bromley this week, but after that, we're on again."

"Yeah, about that." Ally hesitated. "I'm going to Bromley myself. Just observing; part of my training, Weyman said. I spoke with him just now. That's why I'm here - want to ride down there with me?"

It wasn't why she was here at all. But she could hardly have said she wanted to see Patrice one last time before the detox. Perhaps the Patrice Ally knew was only the by-product of a mind-altering drug. But she was her friend all the same, and she'd miss her.

If Patrice came out of there a changed woman, she'd still be missing her when she was back.

Patrice looked at her, surprised. "That'd be neat. You're going now?"

Ally nodded, a bit nervous. She still had no idea how much of a difference the detox would even make - for Patrice, or for their friendship.

"All right, then." Patrice picked up her duffle bag, and they said good-bye to Benjy and Rashid. At the door, Ally turned back and looked at the muscle-packed soldier again. " _Benjy_?" she muttered at Patrice, snorting a little. "He doesn't look like a Benjy."

Taking refuge in banter. Clinging to what they had, while they had it. After all, she'd never known Patrice without the drug. Whoever she might be, underneath: _that_ was the woman Ally truly didn't know at all.

All she could do was hope for the best.

Patrice blinked once; twice. Then a wicked smile lifted the corners of her lips. "Well," she drawled, clearly relishing the familiar story, "we already had Big Ben and Little Ben, and Benny, oh, and Pub Quiz Ben, when he joined up." A delighted grin. "I still remember his face when Rashid introduced him and said, in that dry voice of his, 'Ladies and gentlemen, this here's the newbie, Benjamin Stuart. Henceforth he shall be known as Benjy.'"

They laughed as they walked out the door.


End file.
